Why Climategate Matters

Environmental scientist Kenneth Green counters the claim that the Climategate scandal is much ado about nothing.

Climategate reveals skulduggery the general public can understand: that a tightly-linked clique of scientists were behaving as crusaders. Their letters reveal they were working in what they repeatedly labelled a “cause” to promote a political agenda.

That’s not science, that’s a crusade. When you cherry-pick, discard, nip, tuck, and tape disparate bits of data into the most alarming portrayal you can in the name of a “cause,” you’re not engaged in science, but in the production of propaganda. And this clique tried to subvert the peer-review process as well. They attempted to prevent others from getting into peer reviewed journals — thus letting them claim skeptic research wasn’t peer-reviewed — a convenient circular (and dishonest) way to discredit skeptics.

The dishonesty exposed by the Climategate data is not an isolated aberration. Rather, it is symptomatic of a wider disease that has infected all of Western culture. “Truth” is no longer an objective standard that should be sought and honored. Instead, it has become whatever the individual wants it to be. In this case, the “whatever” is a one-world utopia governed by technocrats who know what’s best for the rest of us.

Where Is Your Freedom?

An Ohio family is terrified after being attacked by a gang of young black thugs in their own front yard. The family and a couple of friends, all of whom are white, were roughed up by a group of young men shouting, “It’s a black world!” and “This is our world!”

The  father, Marty Marshall, is shaken up after the attack.

This makes you think about your freedom. In all reality, where is your freedom when you have this going on?

Indeed. And where is Obama’s Justice Department on this case? The police are not investigating it as a hate crime, but reverse the skin colors and see how fast the Feds would come down on it.

Oh, No! Michael Jackson is Dead!

Michael who??

As I got into the car yesterday leaving work, the AM station I listen to was breaking into normal broadcasting with a news bulletin:  “This is an ABC Special Report” the announcer declared solemly, with that gripping intro music playing. Uh, oh, I thought. What’s happened? Has the President been shot? Did North Korea just fire a nuke into Hawaii? Has the government of Iran collapsed?

None of the above. Michael Jackson has been rushed to the hospital.

For the next thirty minutes the broadcast was taken over by several news correspondants covering every angle of the story: Michael’s career, Michael’s music, Michael’s health, Michael’s legal problems, ad nauseum.

Gimme a break. If media big shots really want to figure out why our culture is so debased, they can start by examining their own reporting. When this weirdo gets more coverage than the far more important issues facing this country, the media have lost their bearings.

Living on the Water

After the destruction of Hurricane Ike, why in the world would anyone choose to rebuild on the shores of Galveston Bay? One long-term resident explains why in this poignant WSJ video report from San Leon.

I have relatives who live nearby in Bacliff, so I understand fully the attraction to this region.

The Bones Speak

DNA testing on skeletons recently unearthed at a site in Germany reveal that human society hasn’t changed much in 4,600 years.

In one grave, a man, a woman, and two young children were buried together. DNA tests showed that the four were related, i.e., they were a traditional nuclear family unit. But the bones showed evidence that this family and the others at the site had all died violently, apparently in a village raid.

So take your pick on the primary history lesson: Here is evidence that the traditional family has always been the foundation of society. Or here is evidence that mankind has always been at war with itself.

Personally, I see a third lesson that tips the scales toward a more optimistic view of humanity: Apparently there were enough survivors from the raid that they took the time to honor their dead and bury the victims, many of them in an eternal embrace. Even in the midst of a violent world, people still have the capacity for love.

UPDATE: Read more details here and here.

High Esteem — But No Clue

A new study suggests that the self-esteem movement may have gone too far in building self-confidence in kids.

Decades of relentless, uncritical boosterism by parents and school systems may be producing a generation of kids with expectations that are out of sync with the challenges of the real world.

In other words, self-esteem is not merely taught, it is developed through a pedagogy of discipline and challenge, reinforced by positive reward.

Just imagine how these out-of-touch, feel-good young adults will skew elections once they are old enough to vote. Oh, wait, . . . .

Why the Anti-Gay Marriage Proposition Won

Despite the leftward tilt in Tuesday’s election, voters in three large states — California, Arizona, and Florida — passed propositions defining marriage as heterosexual only. There are several reasons why these propositions passed, but one stands out as worthy of mention, at least regarding the California vote.

The pro-amendment forces were running a devastating ad showing a self-satisfied San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom shouting wild-eyed at a rally that same-sex marriage was inevitable “whether you like it or not.” The announcer then said darkly, “It’s no longer about tolerance. Acceptance of gay marriage is now mandatory.” Many fence sitters were turned off by Newsom’s arrogance.

It’s not just Newsom’s arrogance. The whole gay rights movement is increasingly dominated by shrill activists whose in-your-face tactics turn off straight people. Their behavior confirms the fears of many, that the gay rights issue is not about simple tolerance; it’s about defiance — brash, arrogant, fist-shaking, you’d-better-accept-this-or-else defiance. Normal people will react negatively to that kind of pushiness every time, regardless of the merits of the cause.

TV Sex Affects Teen Pregnancy Rate

Via FoxNews.com:

Groundbreaking research suggests that pregnancy rates are much higher among teens who watch a lot of TV with sexual dialogue and behavior than among those who have tamer viewing tastes. . . . Previous research by some of the same scientists had already found that watching lots of sex on TV can influence teens to have sex at earlier ages.

So popular culture influences impressionable young minds. Who would have known?

The Rural-Urban Political Divide

The split between rural and urban voting patterns has deepened in recent elections, providing the margin of victory for Republicans. This split is the result of a gradual shift in living patterns over the last couple of generations.

People made choices about how and where they wanted to live. We sorted. Some people gravitated to cities. Others moved to where there was a bit more space. The two political parties came to represent people who had a kind of lifestyle that was represented in where they lived.

Will that split play a role in this election, too? Stay tuned . . . .

Who’s More Empathetic?

Liberals or conservatives? Judith Warner found the answer:

Jonathan Haidt, an associate professor of moral psychology at the University of Virginia, argues in an essay this month, “What Makes People Vote Republican?”, that it’s liberals, in fact, who are dangerously blind.

Haidt has conducted research in which liberals and conservatives were asked to project themselves into the minds of their opponents and answer questions about their moral reasoning. Conservatives, he said, prove quite adept at thinking like liberals, but liberals are consistently incapable of understanding the conservative point of view. “Liberals feel contempt for the conservative moral view, and that is very, very angering. Republicans are good at exploiting that anger,” he told me in a phone interview.

Clinical Psychologists Leaving the APA

As the American Psychological Association veers further leftward into la-la-land, some members are leaving the organization. It no longer represents who they are and what they do.

They have spent their time alienating many clinicians who do not toe their party line and seem frankly, stuck in a 60’s time warp.

What’s at Stake

Bill Muehlenberg looks at the Palin phenomenon through the “big picture lens,” and sees a stark contrast in this year’s race.

The defining issue of the American presidential race in general, and the choice of Palin in particular, is that of worldviews. Two mutually exclusive worldviews are battling it out for the heart and soul of America. One values life, liberty, faith and family. One values statism, secularism and social engineering. These are incompatible worldviews. Thus the stakes are high, and the left is upset – big time.

It seems that every election cycle, the gap between these two worldviews widens. At some point, I fear, the divide will be unbridgable.

Two Americas: The Real Story

John Edwards was right: there are two Americas. But the distinction is cultural, not economic. Thomas Lifson has this observation on the rabid response of the left to McCain’s veep pick:

Sarah Palin’s pending nomination for Vice President is exposing the depth of the cultural divide between Middle America and the leftists who have taken over the education, media, and cultural establishment of our country.

The Left never could figure out Ronald Reagan, either. But America — the real America — did, and loved him. The same thing may be happening again.

When Daughters Make a Mistake: Obama vs. Palin

Sarah and Todd Palin have just announced that their oldest daughter, Bristol, age 17, is five months pregnant. Bristol and the baby’s father intend to get married.

They likely timed the announcement to ward off the sick rumors that their infant son, Trig, was actually Bristol’s. I am more interested in the stark contrast between how the Palins are handling this and something Obama said a few months ago.

Barack Obama, March 29, 2008, Johnstown, PA:

“I’ve got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

Sarah Palin, September 1, 2008, campaign statement:

“We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.”

I don’t care what your political persuasion is, which of these two statements is the more compassionate and humanitarian?

It’s All About Family

Kathleen Parker takes a break from the rantings of this political season to reminisce with a friend about what’s really important. Hint: it’s not the government.

The family is what gives our life meaning and makes our nation strong. The family is also what keeps government at a respectful distance — working for us and not the other way around.

All our political choices should be made in the service of that understanding. That’s all. And we’ve got work to do.

Belgium: Culture and Nationhood

Belgium is slowly becoming two distinct nations speaking two languages, one Flemish, one French. Political division may be inevitable.

It’s about culture in the end. In its escalating dysfunction Belgium demonstrates the inextricable link between culture and nationhood.

Belgium’s experience holds lessons for America and our own indifference to preserving a common “American” culture in the face of a growing — and insular — Hispanic culture.

Math and Gender

A new study was trumpeted by the media last week, indicating that girls do no worse on standardized math scores than boys. Clearly, the commentary added, the disparities of the past were due to social preconditioning, not genetic differences, and our war against this evil stereotype is finally paying off.

Heather MacDonald took a closer look at the study, and discovered that, once again, the media reported only part of the story, the part that seemed to match their agenda. There was another angle they conveniently ignored: “while boys’ and girls’ average scores are similar, boys outnumber girls among students in both the highest and the lowest score ranges.”

Boys are found more often than girls at the outer reaches of the bell curve of abstract reasoning ability. If you’re hoping to land a job in Harvard’s math department, you’d better not show up with average math scores; in fact, you’d better present scores at the absolute top of the range. And as studies have shown for decades, there are many more boys than girls in that empyrean realm. Unless science and math faculties start practicing the most grotesque and counterproductive gender discrimination, a skew in the sex of their professors will be inevitable, given the distribution of top-level cognitive skills. Likewise, boys will be and are overrepresented among math dunces—though the feminists never complain about the male math failure rate.

Men and women are inherently different, in ways that we are still struggling to understand. To deny this basic fact of human nature is not only intellectually dishonest, it suppresses the diversity that academics insist is so vital among the human community.

Postmodernism in the Oval Office

David Bueche details the slithering path of Obama as he weaves and bobs around and among various positions on Iraq, Reverend Wright, and other issues. His conclusion: Obama is simply practicing his postmodernist philosophy, which recognizes no fixed truth, but views everything as relative. This alone spells trouble for the country if he becomes our commander-in-chief.

If Barack Obama becomes the 44th President there will quickly come a day when he realizes that, although his buddies in media and academia really love this postmodern journey he’s on, the rest of world looks to the President of the United States for fixed principles, clear convictions, and a well-grounded  view of reality.  Given what we’ve seen to date it’s far from clear that Mr. Obama is intellectually or psychologically disposed to meet the challenge.

Moderation in Academia?

Sick of the leftist, politically-correct nonsense that infests so much of higher education these days? Just wait a few years — the current crop of Marxist baby-boomer professors is gradually being replaced by younger, more moderate colleagues.

Baby boomers, hired in large numbers during a huge expansion in higher education that continued into the ’70s, are being replaced by younger professors who many of the nearly 50 academics interviewed by The New York Times believe are different from their predecessors — less ideologically polarized and more politically moderate.

If great historical epochs help shape a generation’s political and cultural outlook (think the Great Depression, WWII, Vietnam, Watergate, etc.), then ponder the effect of the Reagan revolution and the fall of Communism on the generation that came of age during that time — and are now rising up through the ranks of academia.

Where Are the Fathers?

No doubt you have heard by now of the reported pact made by 17 high school girls in Gloucester, MA, to get pregnant. The story apparently got twisted somewhat in the telling (it was a pact to support each other, made after the fact). Whatever the details, it became a national headline.

Kathleen Parker asks the key question in this story: Where are the fathers? No, not the young studs who proved their manhood by deflowering the fair maidens. Rather, where were the fathers of the girls?

It is a fair guess, though not possible to confirm at this point, that at least some of Gloucester’s pregnant daughters are from fatherless homes.

That guess is founded on sound social science indicating a strong correlation between father absence and a high risk for early sex and unwed pregnancy. Not only do fathers provide the masculine affection so many girls seek elsewhere, but they teach their daughters how to handle male sexual aggression, as well as to understand their own role in stimulating that aggression.

Contrary to the claims of feminists, fathers play a crucial role in the healthy emotional development of their daughters. So why isn’t our society doing more to encourage fathers, rather than denigrate them?

Britain Creates a “Why Bother?” Economy

That’s according to a recent report from a British think tank. A complex welfare system coupled with a moribund education system has created a subclass of citizens who have no motivation or even capability to work. As Van Helsing comments,

Basically, liberalism has reduced humans to farm animals. Just like chickens are raised by farmers for their eggs, welfare dependents are raised by the State for their votes.

What is the future of a democracy that operates on that principle?

Guns and Peace in America

Glenn Reynolds calls attention to the transcript of an amazing broadcast on BBC radio recently. The speaker, Justin Webb, gave a remarkably balanced commentary on the correlation between gun ownership among Americans and the sense of civility and serenity that pervades our land — in sharp contrast to the lawlessness (and lack of guns) that dominates Britain.

Brits arriving in New York, hoping to avoid being slaughtered on day one of their shopping mission to Manhattan are, by day two, beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about. By day three they have had had the scales lifted from their eyes.

I have met incredulous British tourists who have been shocked to the core by the peacefulness of the place, the lack of the violent undercurrent so ubiquitous in British cities, even British market towns.

“It seems so nice here,” they quaver.

Well, it is!

Ten or 20 years ago, it was a different story, but things have changed.

And this is Manhattan.

Wait till you get to London Texas, or Glasgow Montana, or Oxford Mississippi or Virgin Utah, for that matter, where every household is required by local ordinance to possess a gun.

Folks will have guns in all of these places and if you break into their homes they will probably kill you.

They will occasionally kill each other in anger or by mistake, but you never feel as unsafe as you can feel in south London.

It is a paradox. Along with the guns there is a tranquillity and civility about American life of which most British people can only dream.

Glenn didn’t mention it, but the speaker also pinpointed another factor contributing to the relative peacefulness of American society:

One reason – perhaps the overriding reason – is that there is no public drunkenness in polite America, simply none.

I have never seen a group of drunk young people in the entire six years I have lived here. I travel a lot and not always to the better parts of town.

It is an odd fact that a nation we associate – quite properly – with violence is also so serene, so unscarred by petty crime, so innocent of brawling.

“We’re Owed and They Aren’t”

Via Rush’s show today:

Ed Kaitz has a superb piece in the American Thinker comparing the plights of two different minority groups in America: Blacks and Asians. Specifically, he points to the experiences of these two groups in New Orleans during the Katrina disaster and its aftermath. While black leadership was moaning and complaining about the poor government response, the Vietnamese quietly went about rebuilding their lives.

The success of Asians in American culture and the continued struggle of blacks is due less to racism and more to a difference in mindset. In the words of a black friend with whom Kaitz discussed this issue, it’s an attitude of “we’re owed and they aren’t.”

I may be just another one of Obama’s “typical white persons,” but this analysis goes a long way toward explaining why so many whites have a hard time maintaining sympathy for the plight of blacks in America. This is America — where anyone can succeed if they’re willing to accept responsibility for their actions, work hard, and pass that ethos on to their children.  Continual whining about racism — especially after all the extraordinary efforts that white Americans have gone through to overcome that evil — is beginning to get a little old.

The Asians understand that. Blacks (at least their leaders) don’t.

“It’s Just Sex”

In the fallout over the Elliot Spitzer sex scandal, we are treated to more sniveling about the prudishness of our hang-ups over sex. “It’s just sex between consenting adults,” we are told, “so what’s the big deal?”

Ross Douthat makes an interesting observation on that line of reasoning:

Given the premises of the pro-prostitution worldview, what’s so abusive and damaging about incest and molestation in the first place? If there’s no moral distinction between giving a handjob in exchange for twenty dollars and getting paid twenty bucks to wash dishes or mow lawns, then why is there a moral distinction between a father who teaches his daughter how to pound nails and one who teaches his daughter to do something more intimate and (to go all wisdom-of-repugnance on you) disgusting? I understand that the kids involved aren’t “consenting adults,” but if selling sex is just like selling labor, and adults force kids to perform all kinds of menial tasks as part of their education, why can’t adults force kids to have intercourse too – especially if they’re safe about it? If selling sex is no big deal because sex itself is no big deal, what’s the big deal about incest?

Sex is not just a service that can be commoditized like any other labor exchange. It is the ultimate expression of human intimacy, reserved for those who have committed their lives to each other in a very unique relationship. Societies that lose sight of that basic rule of human nature are sowing the seeds of their own destruction.

“Dumbness is Us”

Check out this interview with Susan Jacoby, author of the new book, The Age of American Unreason. Jacoby argues that the rise of infotainment as a channel for disseminating “news” is destroying Americans’ ability to read and converse, reducing our ability to respond effectively to the world.

Dumbness is us. When I hear people saying, “You were lied to,” usually in relation to the Iraq war, I think the fundamental question we should ask is really why we as a people were so susceptible to lies. If we don’t know where Iraq is on a map, if we don’t know anything about other cultures, if we don’t know anything about our history, the problem comes from us.

She believes the internet contributes to the problem. Perhaps so, but that’s not the fault of the internet, but of how people use it. Still, when watching how the electorate is being so shamelessly manipulated in this election cycle, you can’t help but agree with Jacoby’s basic thesis.

Fascism in the Name of Diversity

Look carefully at how the diversity advocates push their agenda, and it’s obvious that their broadmindedness has carefully drawn limits. John Leo relates several examples of Catholic charities that have been driven out of business by government mandates that they provide services contrary to core church teachings. In other words, the church’s traditional stance on moral issues is exempt from diversity protection.

Those who talk the most about diversity and pluralism are often the most willing to mandate that all private and religious institutions conform to one ideological framework. Liberals . . . are eradicating the differences needed to make tolerance a viable practice. In order to enhance diversity, it is necessary to suppress it.

It is only a matter of time before all churches that adhere to traditional (i.e., conservative) principles will feel the jackboot of a fascist government on their necks.

Feminism and the Law of Unintended Consequences

Kathryn Jean Lopez recently wrote a review on the movie Juno. She made some good observations about the phenomenon of arrested development that seems to be more widespread among young men these days (as typified by a character in the movie).

More interesting, however, was the response that Lopez received from a reader. Here are some key snippets.

Feminism’s second wave has had many, many unintended consequences, one of which is that men, not just women have been liberated from their traditional roles. Many men simply don’t feel the need to grow up because women have quite plainly said they don’t need or value men. “You say you can take care of yourselves? Fantastic! I’m gonna go invent computer games and play them for as long as I want.”

. . .

You (women) said you could take care of yourselves, and you’re doing so just fine. You treat them as disposable, dispensable, replaceable components of your lives and so they’re disengaged from you and they choose not to make commitments to you. The dissolution of a commitment to marry and have children has enormous negative financial and emotional consequences to a man. Why should they make such commitments when women consider such commitments easily violable, valueless, and trivial? Is there anything about the response of men to our culture and the choices of women that really surprises you?

The two genders are like magnets — let the opposing polarities face each other, and there is a strong attraction that binds them together; but try to force the same polarities together, and they repel each other.

Like it or not, men and women are different, and any effort to force them into absolutely equal roles is doomed to fail. This does not mean women must be forced into a box. It means simply that men and women have innate but unique qualities that should be respected and encouraged.

(via Instapundit)

Belated Happy Birthday, Rob’t E. Lee

On the anniversary of Robert E. Lee’s birth, a tribute to my Southern heritage. (Okay, his birthday was Jan. 19, but I just now stumbled across this.)

Yankees just don’t get it.

Literature and Culture

David Plotz, writing in Slate, describes a recent visit to The Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem, which houses a collection of the Dead Sea Scrolls. His article is an interesting recounting of the history of the Scrolls, the Essenes, and the fortress at Masada. But the following paragraph really caught my attention.

The difference between the Jews and the Canaanites, Moabites, Edomites, and all the other Ites who bedeviled us in the Bible is that we wrote the book, and they didn’t. Jews survived not because we went forth and multiplied—we didn’t—but because we kept going to the library. Again and again, Jews as people have barely survived extermination, skirting wipeouts at the hands of the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Romans. We were scattered by diaspora, savaged by the Inquisition and Holocaust. If you are religious-minded, you may believe that Jews persisted because God chose us. But even if you’re not, you must acknowledge that the holy books are the root of our survival. Jews endured because our book endured. We remained a people because we preserved a culture, and we preserved a culture because we kept a book.

This is an excellent defense of the power of literature to preserve a culture, despite every effort to wipe it out. This prompts a couple of sobering thoughts.

First, it might explain why Christianity is in decline across much of the Western world today. Christians on the whole no longer look to “the Book” — the Bible — as the lodestone of their faith. The Bible is routinely disparaged and ignored as the source of guidance and hope — and that by the very people who ought to be zealously defending it.

Second, on a broader level, this concept portends doom for a nation whose education system no longer honors its literary heritage. Children who pass through our education system today are not exposed to the literary genius of earlier English and American authors like they once were. The result is a generation of young Americans who look with disdain on anything older than last week’s edition of People Magazine as outdated and irrelevant.

Literature is to a culture what blood is to a human body. When we lose it, we die.

The Islamification of Great Britain

A British columnist sounds the alarm on the growing threat of Islam to English culture in Great Britain.

Enthusiasts for multi-culturalism continually demand that the indigenous British people show tolerance towards those of other faiths but when it comes to fundamentalist Islam, there is no pressure for this mood of tolerance to be reciprocated.

Islam in Britain could be portrayed as a combination of the outstretched palm of victimhood, begging for official support, and the clenched fist of grievance, threatening violence if demands are not met.

All too often the political establishment has surrendered, dressing up its feebleness as multi-cultural sensiti­vity. But, as the Bishop of Rochester asserts, the outcome of this defeatism has been catastrophic. Civic institutions might blather about “unity in diversity” but, in reality, urban Britain is scarred by divisions. Integration has given way to separatism.

He recounts numerous examples of Muslim culture replacing English culture, and concludes,

Christianity helped to build the safe, tolerant society which for generations has attracted migrants fleeing persecution or squalor. Yet now, as Christian­ity withers, large swathes of our country are starting to replicate the Third World.

This is happening not only in Britain, but all across Europe. And there are dunderheads here in the States who champion the same multicultural claptrap that has gotten Europe to this sorry state.